Category Archives: pinwheels

Polka Pots for Samantha

pinwheels, Samantha Mosey 8 Comments

As promised, pictures of the finished quilt:

PolkaPotsFinished

The quilt I made for granddaughter Samantha for Christmas 2011 is now complete:

Polka Pots

by Caron Mosey

Longarm quilted by Lisa Burmann of Burmann Studios

with Hobbs 80/20 batting

pinwheel

Each block has a different polka dot fabric, as Samantha loves polka dots (that she calls polka POTS).  Her bedroom is lavender and pink, a very girly room.  Thanks to my friend Lisa for the perfect quilting!

Unless posted otherwise, all photos and writing copyright Caron Mosey,
http://blog.caronmosey.com. If you would like to use a photo or article seen here,
please contact me at caron mosey at gmail dot com.

A Stitch Here, a Binding Mishap There

binding, hand quilting, pinwheels Leave a comment

Before I forget to mention this, please take a waltz over to Pippa’s blog at Welsh Quilts to see the bright yellow, whole-cloth and hand quilted masterpiece that she recently posted!   OMG, it is stunning!   Can you imagine the time it took to mark that quilt for stitching?  Amazing!

Yesterday I put the binding on Samantha’s “Pinwheel Polka Pots” quilt.  Yesterday I posted a link to a binding tutorial and said I always hand stitch the binding to the back.  Well, I got to thinking about it, and thought this might be the perfect quilt to have a machine-sewn binding, so I gave it a try.  Major FAIL!  I sewed the binding to the front of the quilt as usual.   Then I turned it around to the back, overlapped a smidge so that I could stitch in the ditch from the front to “grab” it, and things were whizzing along just fine.   And then… FAILURE.  I had gaps where the machine didn’t catch the binding on the back.

Back to the drawing board. 

You should know I have been known to ignore rules.  Here’s what I did to correct my problem.  I inserted the pins differently than what was shown in the tutorial.  Instead of putting the pins parallel running in the same direction as the binding, I put mine perpendicular to the binding.  I had been pulling out the pins as I came to them when they were parallel, and that allowed the binding to shift as I sewed.

This way with the pins perpendicular, I could keep the pins in place, and yes, I sewed right over them. 

I warned you that I break rules!

My old Bernina was quite content to sew over the pins this way, and the binding turned out fine.

Did you notice that I didn’t say “the binding turned out great?”  That’s because I really prefer the look of a hand-stitched binding on the back.  I don’t like the machine stitching showing.  So I will limit my use of this method to quilts that will be lovingly used, for machine quilted pieces that will receive a lot of washing, etc.  I won’t use this on my hand quilted quilts.

So Polka Pots is now finished, except for the label, a toss in the washer and then in the dryer.  Stay tuned!

Unless posted otherwise, all photos and writing copyright Caron Mosey,
http://blog.caronmosey.com. If you would like to use a photo or article seen here,
please contact me at caron mosey at gmail dot com.

Two Goals for Today

Google quilting blogs, pinwheels, Samantha Mosey 7 Comments

I haven’t posted in a few days.  I’ve been busy working on several different things outside of my normal work day.  I have all my pinwheels sewn, and the alternating blocks are now cut, ready and waiting.  I have laid out all the blocks on the bed and positioned them the way I want them. 

Goal #1 for the day: 

blocksSew the blocks together.  I don’t know if I’ll get ALL of them sewn together, but it’s a goal.  This is for Samantha’s twin size bed, but the blocks were laid out on my queen size.

Goal #2 for the day:

Greader2Catch up on my blog reading.  I use Google Reader, which I love, but when the number of items I need to read gets above 30, it puts me into a panic.  Why do I let it do that?  Over the past three days, I’ve been busy with other things and haven’t even scanned the blogs I love.   So to my dismay, this morning the number is three times what I’d like it to be.  But then, I turned around and saw that the Woodworker is on his own Google Reader, and his number is 1000+, so I guess I need to put things into perspective.  It’s not a race, right?  There’s no punishment for having a big number, except now that you know I haven’t read blogs in a few days you might think I’ve been ignoring you.  And in talking about this with the Woodworker, he’s sure I’m off my rocker.  Aren’t you glad YOU don’t live with me? 

Unless posted otherwise, all photos and writing copyright Caron Mosey,
http://blog.caronmosey.com. If you would like to use a photo or article seen here,
please contact me at caron mosey at gmail dot com.

Pinwheels are Moving Forward!

pinwheels, Samantha Mosey 3 Comments

I purchased the fabric for the plain blocks and border for Samantha’s quilt, and a cute purple scroll for a very narrow flange that will go just inside the border on the edge of the quilt.  So here’s the plan, Stan:

pink and purple

I wanted the border fabric and the alternating plain blocks to have some color in them, yet not be so busy that the whole quilt gives you a headache to look at it.  So I found this textured pink and purple fabric that I love.  Samantha’s bedroom walls are a light lavender, so this will be perfect (and she loves pink).  And to look at some of the other blocks that are already pieced:

I think it’s going to turn out just fine!

Now for the weekend sewing blitz!

See ya later!

Unless posted otherwise, all photos and writing copyright Caron Mosey,
http://blog.caronmosey.com. If you would like to use a photo or article seen here,
please contact me at caron mosey at gmail dot com.